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Famagusta, on the east coast of Cyprus, was once one of the most glamorous resorts in the Mediterranean. Its miles of pale sand and clear turquoise sea made it a destination for the Seventies jet-set, attracting thousands of visitors each year.

Along with the tourists, the 40,000-strong population enjoyed a life rich in culture, with art, music and theatre that was the best on the island. With the deepest port in Cyprus, Famagusta handled more than 80 per cent of the island’s cargo, much of which comprised a vast tonnage of citrus fruit picked from the local orchards.

The modern district, where the luxury hotels and apartments were situated, was inhabited mostly by Greek Cypriots, while the walled city that contained the historical treasures of Famagusta – including numerous Byzantine churches and a spectacular 14th-century cathedral from the Frankish period – was lived in by Turkish Cypriots.

But 40 years ago this month, Famagusta’s reign as a paradise for islanders and tourists came to an abrupt and untimely end.

Following a Greek military coup in July 1974, Turkish forces invaded, ostensibly to restore constitutional order and to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority. After a brief period of ceasefire, Famagusta was bombarded and Turkish tanks then advanced.

On August 14, the Greek Cypriot population fled in terror, in cars, on buses, by foot, taking nothing but the clothes they stood up in. They expected help from a foreign power, but none came, and their evacuation turned into weeks, then months, then decades.

My first visit to Cyprus was four summers after the war. I had answered a small ad in Time Out for an overland trip to Cyprus, not realising that I was going to an area under army occupation. I was 18 and very naïve. It took the sight of buildings pockmarked with bullets to tell me that this was going to be a strange holiday. There are 40,000 Turkish soldiers in the north of Cyprus today, but back in 1978 there were considerably more.

I found myself on an island where the Turks had effectively drawn a line across Cyprus dividing north from south, cutting off Famagusta and other towns from their Greek Cypriot populations. On one of my trips around the north of the island with some soldiers who were on leave, I remember seeing a big modern city in the distance and being told that was where the best beaches were. I asked if we could go. “No,” they said. “It’s out of bounds.”

Victoria HislopCredit:
Paul Grover

That city was Famagusta, a city that had become a symbol for the island’s division.

The year of my first visit, the border was entirely sealed, and it remained so for another 25 years. Then, in 2003, the Turkish authorities opened it to allow people to visit their old homes . Many found them occupied by Turkish Cypriots or settlers from Turkey. It was a traumatic experience in every way, many finding their houses had been destroyed or altered beyond recognition.

Today, one part of Famagusta still remains entirely sealed off by rusting barbed wire, fiercely guarded by Turkish troops. Known as Varosha, it represents about 20 per cent of Famagusta and was the prime tourist area, comprising the stretch of golden sand, behind which stand skeletons of bombed and abandoned hotels and apartments, and streets of looted shops, restaurants, mansions.

The ghost town is heavily guarded by soldiers, and aggressive signs make it clear that this is a no-go area. Through huge holes in the plastic netting there is a provocatively clear view of the dereliction that lies behind. Weeds sprout between the paving stones, window panes are broken, the atmosphere eerie and sinister.

For the past two years, I have been visiting the north and south of Cyprus regularly to research a novel. In that time, I have seen extensive building work taking place in the area surrounding Varosha, making it unrecognisable to former inhabitants. A large population of settlers from the Turkish mainland live there, their lifestyle and culture very different even from that of the Turkish Cypriots.

It is painful for Greek Cypriots to see their city being reconstructed. There is plenty of anger about this situation, but also sadness. The greatest sadness, of course, is that tens of thousands of people have lost everything they had. But there is also regret that the harmony in which Greek and Turkish Cypriots lived has been destroyed. Erato Kantouna, daughter of the city’s former harbour master, recalls that her father was good friends with many Turkish Cypriots. They were colleagues, she tells me. “And some of them only spoke Greek.”

Many of the Turkish Cypriots I’ve met have expressed similar frustration. Serdar Atai, who is part of a joint civic society that encourages co-operation between the two communities, told me how it feels to live in Famagusta. “We are in captivity, like hostages,” he says. “They promised everything would be OK, but our future is captive. Can you imagine this trauma? It’s a big load for people who live here. They wake up to a dark horizon.”

We went to Serdar’s shop to collect the key to the beautiful 14th-century church of Agios Georgios Exorinos. Inside, several things caught my attention – most obviously the defaced frescos, with the faces and the cross crudely scratched out. There have been numerous cases of cultural vandalism in the Greek Orthodox churches of the north.

But something else stood out: in the corner was an “epitafios”, a flower-decked bier that is carried through the streets on Good Friday. This year, for the first time since 1958, a Greek Orthodox service was held in the church. Thousands of Greek Cypriots crossed the border to take part in this deeply symbolic moment.

Last weekend, I attended a rally that marked 40 years since the people of Famagusta lost their homes. To reach the event, I travelled along a road that runs parallel to the demarcation line dividing Cyprus. Every few kilometres there was a sentry post on a hill, from which Turkish soldiers looked down at us.

A similar occasion has been held each year since the division of the island and takes place in Dherynia, a village in the district of Famagusta close to the “border”. From here, the ghost town is clearly visible in daylight, its multi‑storey hotels stark against the skyline. At night, it disappears. There are no lights inside those buildings.

On the night of Famagusta Remembrance Day, I walked alongside a crowd of several hundred people from the cultural centre of occupied Famagusta through the village to present a declaration at the United Nations checkpoint. A letter, addressed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, requested the return of Famagusta to its lawful inhabitants. With their flags waving in the breeze, they sang songs about their lost city to the UN troops on duty. It was a peaceful demonstration, but beneath it simmered bitterness and grief.

Back at the cultural centre, 1,200 of us (including a number of Turkish Cypriots and three members of the British-Cyprus all-party parliamentary group) listened to speeches from, among others, the president of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades. He welcomed the Turkish Cypriots at the event and said that a solution to the Cyprus issue should have no winners or losers, only happy European citizens. He asked them to work with the Greek Cypriots in order to have a free country.

“Time is against us,” he said. “Not only for the Greek Cypriots but for the Turkish Cypriots.” The latter are now a minority compared to the settlers from Turkey.

Cynical bystanders told me that the same things are said each year, and negotiations have certainly been continuing for a long while. The discovery of vast gas reserves in the waters around Cyprus might, however, prove a catalyst for some kind of settlement.

As the evening continued, with hugely emotional songs about the city silhouetted beneath the moonlight, I wondered if the amplifiers carried them as far as the soldiers guarding the city.

“We left with the certainty that we would soon return, believing that the civilised world would never accept this crime against Cyprus,” Alexis Galanos, who is effectively the mayor in exile, tells me. “We were wrong.”

Famagusta is known to the Greeks as Ammohostos, meaning “buried in the sand”. I hope that the issue of its rightful return will not meet this fate.